‘Karla’, ‘Sechswochenamt’ dominate prizes at Munich’s German Cinema New Talent awards

Greek-German filmmaker Christina Tournatzés won the €30,000 best director prize and Yvonne Görlach won the €10,000 best screenplay award for the drama Karla at the German Cinema New Talent awards held during this year’s Munich International Film Festival (MIFF).

Karla is based on real events in Munich in 1962 when a 12-year-old girl, played by Elise Krieps in her first lead role, takes the courageous step of filing a complaint against her father, seeking protection from his years of abuse.

Produced by Achtung Panda! Media in co-production with Studio TV Film, Karla will be released in German cinemas on October 2 by eksystent Filmverleih, with world sales handled by The Playmaker Munich. 

The three-member jury of actor-director Erol Afşin, writer-director Jan-Ole Gerster, and actress Liliane Amuat described Tournatzés’ work as ”a film that lingers long after the credits roll, directed with cinematic intelligence, a big heart, and deep admiration for its heroine”. 

Of Görlach, who made her feature-length screenwriting debut with Karla, the jury said she “treats this story and her characters with a great deal of respect and empathy. She takes her time, is economical, doesn’t embellish, is never kitschy, hints at things, and leaves out much that cannot be said but that is left to our imagination and moves us all the more”.

The best screenplay also gives Görlach an opportunity to participate in a mentoring programme organised by Bavaria Fiction and supervised by development executive Thomas Kren.

The awards for best producer (€20,000) and best acting performance (€10,000) went to Jacqueline Jansen and Magdalena Laubisch respectively for Jansen’s debut feature Sechswochenamt. The film is about a young woman returning to her hometown to come to terms with her mother’s passing and pay her final respects.

Jansen, who has worked in the production teams of Babylon Berlin and The Queen’s Gambit TV series as well as Julia von Heinz’s Treasure, compared the making of her semi-autobiographical film to a “mission impossible” and spoke up “for projects that don’t fit into any category, that fall through the cracks, that dare to do something different.”

Jansen also benefited from an innovation this year in which the winner of the producer prize received 50,000 ‘reference points’ from the German Federal Film Board (FFA) towards the funding of a future project.

The German Cinema New Talent Award is sponsored by Bavaria Film, Bayerischer Rundfunk, and DZ Bank and recognises outstanding achievements by emerging talent in feature films screened in MIFF’s New German Cinema section.

• ma.ja.de. Fiction wins €100,000 CineCoPro prize at Munich for ‘A Poet’